Dedicated to getting to the truth of things. A Christian since 1984. (Just a Christian, without pigeon-holing into a denomination.) I like people to be free to ask their questions about Christianity and the church. I like to approach faith questions with my brain switched on. A qualified classicist and historian.
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And I don't look like James Garner. Enough about me already.

Saturday, 10 October 2015

So when did St Paul persecute the church? (And when did Jesus die?)

Simple question. St Paul said he persecuted the
church before his own conversion happened. This was in the first century AD, but when?
In the 30s? In the 40s? Later?On purpose, I’m going to answer with one hand tied
behind my back. What I mean is this: I’m not going to use any information in
the Book of Acts. None at all. Zilch. Zero. Big fat zero.I’m going to get my dating purely from first-hand
autobiographical eyewitness data from someone who was there, and in
his own words, there when Paul was persecuting the church. That person, is of course,
Paul himself, the persecutor. As usual in my blogs, I’m going to rely only
on letters that scholars agree were written by Paul himself. I mean secular
scholars, Jewish scholars and Christian scholars. And even then, I’m only going
to use a few of those authentic letters: Galatians, Corinthians and
Romans. That is all I’m giving myself to determine when Paul was persecuting church. (And for good measure, I'll have a go at when Jesus died too.) How will I do?An independent yardstickI'll be mentioning a few dates. To measure all
the dates against some fixed point in time, I am going to use only two yardsticks,
independent yardsticks:

1) the Jewish War with Rome. The war began in 66AD
and ended in 70AD. Those are dates that historians on all sides agree on. That
is: the siege of Jerusalem began in 66AD; and Jerusalem was destroyed in
70AD. The Romans destroyed the city and the Temple. The destruction was so
great that the rabbis upped sticks and left and settled in Galilee. The
destruction was so utter that according to archaeologists not even burials
happened at Jerusalem afterwards. The city was wrecked, its people slaughtered,
others dispersed.

2) King Aretas IV died in 40/41AD. Again, historians are
agreed on that.

On the first point, in some of Paul's autobiographical letters, he
describes trips he’s made to Jerusalem after he stopped persecuting the church,
or trips that he was planning to make. The descriptions of these trips leave us
in no doubt that they are before 70AD. It's not as if he says, "I met
Peter and we were in a war zone!" Only before 70AD were such
trips as he describes possible. Indeed,in 1 Corinthians, Paul clearly knows that the temple is still standing, which means he cannot have written this any later than 70AD:

'Don't you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?”(1 Corinthians 9:13)

Also, the letters’ contents fit comfortably in the pre-70AD period. That is, Paul’s operations fit in the world of Jews and Romans and other Gentiles of that period. Paul seems to know nothing about the post-70AD world in which the Jewish nation had been devastated by the war with Rome and Jewish-Roman tensions were more problematic – he belongs to the earlier period.Each time he goes on a trip Paul has a reason for
going. He tells us in his own words the reason for his trips and we start to
get an idea of how far apart in time they were from each other. Here are his mentions of the first two:

“I persecuted the church of God and tried to
destroy it... [Paul then describes being converted to following Jesus]... I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days... Later I went to Syria and Cilicia.” (Galatians 1:13-18)

“Fourteen years later I went up again to
Jerusalem ...set before them the gospel I preach among the gentiles.
But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was
running or had run my race in vain.” (Galatians 2:1-2 – So Paul went to get his
preaching vetted and approved by the leaders of the Jerusalem church.)

So that was two visits, many years apart, which
happened after his conversion. Paul planned a third visit to Jerusalem towards
the end of his ministry career:

“Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the
service of the saints there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a
contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.” (Romans:
15:25-26 – Paul says he had been collecting money from his churches for some
years to take to Jerusalem, a gift to the Jerusalem church.)

So, there we have three visits and we have some numbers (the mentions of three years and fourteen years).
It’s time to get the calculator out.

We can start from 70AD - when Jerusalem got destroyed - and work backwards. But
realistically, it makes more sense to start from 66AD and work backwards,
because in 66AD the siege of Jerusalem began. The visits above don’t give any
impression at all that Paul was making his trips during the siege of
Jerusalem.

So counting the years backwards with our numbers:
Paul says there were 14 years between two of his visits to Jerusalem. So even
if the second visit
(Galatians 2:1-2) was as late as 66AD, then that means Paul’s first visit was at least
14 years before 66AD: so that’s 52AD for the first visit at the latest. (See footnote 2 for another way of
counting.) Paul's first-hand account says that by the time of that first visit,
Paul had already been converted and stopped persecuting the church: that is, by
52AD at the latest.

So 52AD is, to begin with, a terminus ante quem. (Terminus
ante quem is the phrase historians use to say that that this is the latest
possible date by which something had happened.) So Paul had stopped
persecuting the church by 52AD and converted to following Jesus by then.

But actually, we should push it earlier. That’s
because that second visit
was only Paul’s middle visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. I haven’t
fitted in the third visit
he planned (Romans 15:25-26).

So there are things that we need to fit in between Paul’s second and third visits
to Jerusalem, and these probably took some years. That is, after Paul’s second visit to
Jerusalem:

he goes to Antioch and has a row with Peter there (Gal 2:11-14)

he also visits some of his churches around the Mediterranean and
collects money to take back to Jerusalem as a gift on his next visit
(Romans 15:25-26; 2 Cor 8:1-7)

So, we know the second visit is even earlier than 66AD, otherwise
there is no room to fit in Paul planning his third visit before 66AD.

Now, we can push back the time when Paul stopped
persecuting the church a bit further still, because there are three years and a
bit more to fit in, as Paul said:

“I went immediately into Arabia and
later returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to
get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days... Later I
went to Syria and Cilicia... Fourteen years later I went up again to
Jerusalem...”

(As mentioned, there is an alternative way of
counting the 14 years, which I will come to.)

So far, the data gives us this TIMELINE,
starting from earlier events:

Paul stops persecuting the church

time in Arabia (he doesn’t say how long)

time in Damascus - three years

first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (before 52AD)

time in Syria and Cilicia (this place was along the south coast of
Asia Minor – its capital was Tarsus) and places where he did missionary
work [i] - fourteen
years

second visit to Jerusalem (before 66AD)

time doing missionary work

Paul collects money from his churches around the Mediterranean

Paul plans a third
visit to Jerusalem (no later than 66AD)

66AD the siege of Jerusalem

So, the earlier three years mean we can put a date
on when Paul stopped persecuting the church, so, this is the TIMELINE:

Paul stops persecuting the church - before 49AD [ii]

time in Arabia (he doesn’t say how long)

time in Damascus - three years

first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (before 52AD)

time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work -
fourteen
years

second visit to Jerusalem (before 66AD)

plans for third
visit (no later than 66AD)

66AD the siege of Jerusalem

Now realistically, there’s no need to be pushing every single event, including
the third visit to Jerusalem, till the last possible moment up to 66AD – that’s
just our terminus ante quem. And once
we’ve allowed time between the second and third visits to Jerusalem as well, and allowing time
for Arabia after his conversion, then it means that the time when Paul was
persecuting the church is pushed further back into the 40s.All our data from Paul so far is from Galatians and
Romans, and Corinthians. Now let’s get more datable evidence
from Corinthians:

“In Damascus the ethnarch (the governor) [iii] under
King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.” (2
Cor 11:32)

This is where our next independent yardstick comes in: 40/41AD. That's when
King Aretas IV, who ruled the Nabateans from 9BC, died. So 41AD is the terminus ante quem. By then, Paul was getting into
these scrapes while following Jesus. [iv]That means, so far, that Paul’s conversion had
happened by 41AD at the latest. That means Paul had stopped persecuting the
church by 41AD at the latest. That means we have pulled the last possible date
when Paul stopped persecuting the church 8 years, from 49AD to 41AD. This is
what that does to our timeline:

Paul stops persecuting the church – by 41AD

time in Arabia (he doesn’t say how long)

time between Arabia and his first visit - three years

first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (by 44AD at the latest)

time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work -
fourteen
years pass (or 11 years if you prefer to
include the first 3 years within the 14 years - see footnote 2 - this is
the alternative way of counting that I told you about)

second visit to Jerusalem - by 58AD (or 55AD if you prefer
to include the first 3 years within the 14 years)

plans for third
visit (no later than 66AD)

66AD the siege of Jerusalem

The answerTo answer the question that started this blog: When
did Paul stop persecuting the church? The answer is that Paul had stopped
persecuting the church by the 40s, and probably some time earlier.We can say this because Paul was there - his first
hand eyewitness writings give us dates; and we have independent yardsticks - we know when Jerusalem was
destroyed, etc.; so we can compare one with the other in the way. With autobiographical
first-hand eyewitness evidence like this, and independent historical markers
like this, you can actually reconstruct a lot of early church history.So
putting it all together at last, our overall TIMELINE is as follows:

Paul persecutes the church (before 41AD, pushing back into the 30s
realistically)

Paul is converted to following Jesus

Paul stops persecuting the church

time in Arabia (Paul doesn’t say how long)

Paul avoids arrest in Damascus (by 41AD at the very latest)

Aretas IV dies (41AD)

Paul's time in Damascus - three years

first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (by 44AD at the latest)

time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work -
fourteen years

second visit to Jerusalem (by 58AD or 55AD)

he goes to Antioch and has a row with Peter there (Gal 2:11-14)

sometime later, Paul writes his letter to the Galatians, in which
he writes about that time period (3 years and 14 years) and
describes his row with Peter

time doing missionary work

he visits some of his churches around the Mediterranean and
collects money to take back to Jerusalem as a gift on his next visit
(Romans 15:25-26; 2 Cor 8:1-7)

Paul plans a third
visit to Jerusalem

Paul writes Romans and 2 Corinthians in which he talks about his
plans for his next visit to Jerusalem (therefore letters written no
later than 66AD)

66AD the siege of Jerusalem

70AD the destruction of Jerusalem

This is useful stuff, as we want to
know as much as possible about the people Paul persecuted in the 30s for their faith, and about what they knew about Jesus before Paul got interested in following Jesus. This dating gives us extra
confidence about talking about the church Paul persecuted in the 30s.If you wanted to hone the dates further by looking
at data from other sources, such as the Book of Acts, you can of course do that
as another exercise.Footnote: a date for Jesus’ deathPaul gives the Corinthians a bit more information. He tells us us that Jesus had brothers who had wives (1 Corinthians 9:5).
As Paul was writing in the 50s, and Jesus' brothers were adults with wives and clearly still alive in the 50s, this means Jesus' life can be dated to the first half of the first century. (And we see that Paul was an adult persecuting the church in the 30s, so this makes Paul and Jesus contemporaries of the first half of the century.)Paul also tells the Corinthians that he understands that the following things had happened.Information from Paul as a secondary source:

Jesus was betrayed and
crucified, etc. (1 Cor 11:23, 15:3-7)

Information from Paul as a primary
source:

followers of Jesus carried on following Jesus, now as churches (Gal
1:13, 22-23)

other people were "apostles" before he was, and he names
Peter and James (Gal 1:17)

other people were, as he says, "in Christ"
before he was, and he names Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16:7)

Paul persecuted the church (1 Cor 15:9, Gal 1:13)

Paul was converted to following Jesus

Paul stopped persecuting the church (Gal 1:15-16)

Paul went to Arabia (Gal 1:17)

Paul went to Damascus (Gal 1:17)

Paul avoids arrest in Damascus (by 41AD at the very latest)

Taking all this into account, there is a fair bit
to squeeze in, so this pushes the crucifixion of Jesus back into the 30s. And so, in this exercise all of these results
have been calculated based on independent historians' agreed dates
(66-70AD and 41AD) and a few autobiographical letters. So putting it all
together again with Jesus included, our overall TIMELINE is as follows:

by the 30s at the latest, Jesus was betrayed and crucified, etc.

followers of Jesus carry on following Jesus, now as churches

Paul persecutes the church (before 41AD)

Paul is converted to following Jesus

Paul stops persecuting the church

time in Arabia (Paul doesn’t say how long)

Paul avoids arrest in Damascus (by 41AD at the very latest)

Aretas IV dies (41AD)

Paul's time in Damascus - three years

first visit to Jerusalem – for fifteen days (by 44AD at the latest)

time in Syria and Cilicia and places where he did missionary work -
fourteen years

second visit to Jerusalem (by 58AD or 55AD)

he goes to Antioch and has a row with Peter there (Gal 2:11-14)

sometime later, Paul writes his letter to the Galatians

time doing missionary work

he visits some of his churches around the Mediterranean and
collects money to take back to Jerusalem as a gift on his next visit
(Romans 15:25-26; 2 Cor 8:1-7)

Paul plans a third
visit to Jerusalem

Paul writes Romans and 2 Corinthians (no later than 66AD)

66AD the siege of Jerusalem

70AD the destruction of Jerusalem

So that's the timeline. Of course, if you want to hone the
dates more by using data from other sources, such as the gospels, Acts,
Tacitus, etc, you are free to do so! This was just an exercise in getting dates
from Paul’s letters to Galatia, Rome and Corinth.The thing
is, historians when putting dates on Paul's story usually do it by
comparing it with the Book of Acts. I wanted to do something different, and
work backwards from 70AD, a date that is set in stone, so to speak. Q.E.D.

Footnote

From Paul's autobiographical data, the death of Jesus falls into the first half of the first century. It cannot reasonably found to be later, and is actually a good deal earlier. This puts paid to fringe theories such as that of film-maker Lena Einhorn who controversially speculated that Jesus was actually active (as a violent rebel!) in the second half of the first century, and died round about 50-52AD, and that the gospels sneakily shift that date back in time some 15-20 years. Secular scholars have little to no interest in such speculation because it can't reasonably be tied into the dating that Paul's first-hand accounts give us. Indeed, Einhorn's speculation carries much less weight as it is not based on anything first-hand, but is based on her idea that names such as John the Baptist and Jesus were actually code-names for completely different people of the 40s and 50s of the century whose stories she finds in the works of Josephus. If you have not heard of Einhorn's theory, that is why.

[i] Places where Paul says he did missionary work
include Corinth (1 Cor 15:3), Philippi (Philippians 4:9), Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:13), Galatia
(Galatians 1:6, 11). [ii] Many historians would try to fit the three years
into the fourteen years, which would mean, so far in this argument, that the first visit to Jerusalem
had happened by 52rather than 49AD
as a terminus ante quem. See Paul
Barnett, The Birth of Christianity: The
First Twenty Years, page 25-26. Therefore, in this blog I’ve offered both
alternative dates where appropriate.[iii] 41AD: aside from the fact that Paul sees himself
as a believer by this time – this is
autobiographical and there’s no reason to doubt that Paul knew when he was a believer - there is also
an interesting historical puzzle. Aretas IV holding sway, and having an
“ethnarch” under him, is attested only by Paul. However, he is our
earliest source and our only primary source. Josephus, a later source and a
secondary source, is unaware of Aretas IV holding sway there. (As for
their being an 'ethnarch' some see an analogous situation in
Alexandria in Josephus Ant. Book 14: 7.2, but there are problems with that,
as demonstrated by DA Campbell.) DA Campbell suggests Aretas briefly took
advantage of political turmoil and weakness in the region and held sway for a
year or so, which would solve the problems associated with Paul's understanding
of the politics. See Barnett: Paul:
Missionary of Jesus, page 82; and Barnett: The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years, page 62; and DA
Campbell: “An anchor for Pauline Chronology: Paul’s Flight from ‘The Ethnarch
of King Aretas’ (2 Corinthians 11:32-33),” (JBL. 121.2 (2002), 279-302.[iv] DA Cambell argues for 36/37 being
the time when Paul avoided arrest in Damascus - on the basis that this is the
window when Aretas IV could plausibly have seized temporary control of Damascus
- and on that basis Campbell shifts all the dates another four years. If so,
that would mean Paul had ceased to persecute the church by 36/37AD. On a final
note, why was Paul under threat in Damascus? Firstly, relations between Jews and
Nabateans were bitter because in the 20s Antipas divorced King Aretas’ daughter and
remarried Herodias. Secondly, preaching a Jewish messiah to Nabateans was
dangerous enough and may have stirred up trouble in the wider region. Thirdly,
some say Paul was of the Herodian family which wouldn't have gone down well given that King Aretas' daughter had been spurned in favour of Herodias.